VZ-1000 On Tour:
RIEGL Surveying Technology for South American Mining
In June, Thomas Gaisecker, Manager International Sales, visited South America for a demo tour with the VZ-1000 and a visit at the International Exhibition of the Latin American Mining Industry, EXPONOR.
The beginning of the journey was marked by a visit of the mine "Radomiro Tomic", one of Chile's largest copper mines, together with Hector Contreras from our distribution partner GEOCOM S.A., www.geocom.cl. The open-cast quarry is located approximately 3.000 meters above sea level in the Atacama Desert on the foot of the Andes in the Northern part of Chile, side by side with Chile’s most famous copper mine “Chuquicamata”. Mine surveying has been undertaken by means of a RIEGL laser scanner for several years already, and now “Radomiro Tomic” is also interested in the latest RIEGL technology for open pit surveying.
Thomas Gaisecker: "Although I have already been to mines in South America for a few times, the seemingly endless vastness and the tremendous dimensions are very impressive again and again. It is kind of a different world – despite of heat, cold, and dust. And it is the perfect site for operating the VZ-1000. It can cope easily with the huge dimensions of the mines as well as with adverse atmospheric conditions. Dust exposure in copper mining is enormous. However, the RIEGL V-Line technology allows penetrating obstructive dust during data acquisition a priori. With full waveform analysis and online echo digitization, highly reliable measurement data are provided."
(For more technical details on the VZ-1000 please consult the VZ-100 page.)
The next stop was Antofagasta, a city located on the pacific coast of Chile, where 54 per cent of the country's copper are produced. Here, EXPONOR trade fare (www.exponor.cl), where GEOCOM exhibited and represented RIEGL, took place. It is one of the largest mining fairs in Latin America with 700 exhibitors and 30.000 visitors on a 112,000 m² site in the outskirts of Antofagasta and takes place annually, alternate in Antofagasta and Santiago. Even though the exhibition is focused mainly on the Chilean market, it is also of international importance, with exhibitors from 20 countries attending.
GEOCOM's new RIEGL VZ-1000 demo scanner marked the spotlight at the booth. The trade show served as a great opportunity to present the new V-Line technology to a broad professional audience.
With a delay of one day, caused by flight cancellations due to an ash cloud after a volcano in the South of Argentina had erupted, the journey continued to Buenos Aires.
Actually, it had been planned to have some demonstrations in Argentina, too, together with Mertind Ltda (www.mertind.com), in order to provide mining companies and surveyors with the opportunity to convince themselves of the scanner's performance. Unfortunately, the ash cloud prevented flying to the mines. Therefore, the plans were changed on short notice and the team of Mertind had a VZ-1000 training in their office in Buenos Aires instead.
In the RIEGL distribution partner portrait, you can find more information on our Chilean distribution Partner, GEOCOM S.A.
